MICHAEL SHAYNE, PRIVATE EYE(1940)

SLEEPERS WEST(1941)

THE MAN WHO WOULDN’T DIE(1942)

BLUE, WHITE, AND PERFECT(1942)

These four films starred Lioyd Nolan as private eye, Mike Shayne. the creation of Brett Halliday(Davis Dresser). It was an odd experience watching these movies for the first time. I was only familiar with an older Nolan when he was a character actor rather than a leading man. He plays Shayne with all the smart- aleck chops of the usual PI stories and a quick sharp jab when necessary.

I came to the Shayne novels late. By the time I’d discovered them, Dresser had retired from the series and other writers had taken up the mantle, still using the Halliday pseudonym though. I think I’d like to find some of his original Shayne novels.

MICHAEL SHAYNE, PRIVATE EYE was based on the first Halliday novel, DIVIDEND ON DEATH.

Shayne is hired by a rich man to “babysit” his daughter while he’s away. She likes to gamble: on horses, the roulette wheel, whatever. He gets her away from a casino, but she sneaks out and returns. That’s when he decides to pull a prank on her to frighten her.

He drugs the shill encouraging her to gamble, takes her car up the road, and dumps it with shill aboard, shirt front liberally laced with catsup. The plan was to drive her home with her car gone, find her vehicle parked down the road, and discover the “dead” body. The only problem is when they find it, the man has been murdered, with Shayne’s gun(taken by a crooked lawyer earlier in the day) lying by the body.

Shayne has to do a lot of fancy dancing to find the real killer and clear his name.

In SLEEPERS WEST, Shayne is accompanying a witness that will clear an innocent man in a trial from Denver to San Francisco. He has to fend off people out to stop him, a woman reporter  he almost married once, and a lothario the witness meet. After the train wrecks, he has to arrange for a car to get them there quickly. It is based on a novel by Frederick Nebel.

THE MAN WHO WOULDN’T DIE is based on the novel NO COFFIN FOR THE CORPSE by Clayton Rawson with Mike Shayne subbing for the magician-detective of the story.

When someone takes a shot at Kay Wolf during the night and no one believes her story,” It was just a bad dream,” she calls old friend Mike to learn what’s going on. He poses as her new husband, who hasn’t arrived in town yet and none of the family has met.

He finds the bullet within minutes of looking and begins the investigation in earnest.

This movie has a lot of wild stuff. A Doctor’s lab that has all the trappings of a mad scientist, including an electric chair that nearly takes out Shayne. The “ghost” returns and kills the doctor, getting away even with Mike in hot pursuit.

After the police are called, another murder attempt takes place, with a wild car chase following, as Shayne slowly starts piecing together what’s really happening.

BLUE, WHITE, AND PERFECT, based on an old pulp novel by Borden Chase, involves stolen industrial diamonds($100,000), Nazis, and an ocean liner on it’s way to Hawaii. Shayne is working for an aircraft company when he gets a line on the thieves, is fired by trickery, and follows them onto the ship. He’s dismayed to discover an old girl friend involved and tries to sweet talk information out of her. Which is also the aim of a fellow passenger played by George Reeves, TV’s Superman, who turns out to be an undercover FBI agent.

Both are nearly drowned, though saved by the old girl friend, then investigate another death until the real boss of the smuggling operation is discovered.

Only the first of these was based on an actual Mike Shayne novel. One movie, none of these, TIME TO KILL, was based on Raymond Chandler’s THE HIGH WINDOW. I’m not sure for the reasons for all this when there were Mike Shayne novels available for plots.

B-movies all, I enjoyed them. Nolan was in a few more, then Hugh Beaumont, the Beaver’s father,  played the role for five more.